UncleEbenezer wrote:Sorcery wrote:I am not sure I understand the CO2 = heating argument. The 800 pound gorilla in the room is water vapour which is also a greenhouse gas, not as powerful as CO2 or methane, but there is a lot more of it and it cannot be eliminated while retaining seas. There seems to be a Gaia like symmetry about heat with water present. More warmth tends to more water vapour tends to more clouds tends to more rain. Clouds restrict the sun's light. Condensation and rain are exothermic processes releasing heat to space.
On the contrary, water vapour has by far the biggest single effect.
But it's weather, not climate. The key point is that there's a water cycle in long-term balance. Burning hydrocarbons generates water vapour, but there's somewhere for it to go (the oceans) where its volumes are utterly negligible and there's no long-term adverse effect.
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Yes, water cycle is absolutely paramount. I don't think hydrocarbon burning matters that much either.
UncleEbenezer wrote:Methane is something of a red herring too. It has a natural cycle on something like a 20-year timescale, so intermediate between water vapour recycling in days and CO2's geological timescales of millions of years.
CO2 also affects the metabolism. Have you ever suffered in a stuffy room?[/quote]
It's perhaps not as interesting to look at the recycle time as it is to look at the level?
Yes, I make stuffy rooms by smoking, meetings tend to terminate earlier. Good, no?